Cystic fibrosis and your baby

Key POINTS

  • Cystic fibrosis (also called CF) is a status that causes thick mucus to build up in the trunk. This causes problems with breathing and digestion.

  • CF is passed from parents to children through genes. A baby has to inherit a CF gene from both parents to take CF.

  • All babies have a newborn screening test for CF so it tin be found and treated early.

  • Treatment tin include medicines and chest therapy to help with your baby'south animate and digestion.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a condition that affects breathing and digestion. It's caused by very thick mucus that builds up in the trunk.

Mucus is a fluid that normally coats and protects parts of the trunk. It's usually slippery and slightly thicker than h2o. But in CF, the mucus is thicker and sticky. It builds up in the lungs and digestive system and can cause bug with how you breathe and assimilate food.

CF affects about 30,000 children and adults in the United states. It is one of the virtually common genetic conditions in this country. CF is more common in white babies (about 1 in 3,500) than in Hispanic, Native American or Alaskan Native babies (about 1 in ten,000), in Blackness babies (well-nigh 1 in fifteen,000 black) and in Asian babies (virtually 1 in 30,000).

What causes CF?

CF is inherited. This means it'southward passed from parent to child through genes. A cistron is a part of your body'southward cells that stores instructions for the fashion your trunk grows and works. Genes come up in pairs—you become i of each pair from each parent.

Sometimes the instructions in genes change. This is called a gene change or a mutation. Parents tin pass gene changes to their children. Sometimes a gene alter can crusade a gene to not work correctly. Sometimes information technology can cause nascency defects or other health conditions. A nativity defect is a health condition that is nowadays in a baby at birth.

Your baby has to inherit a gene change for CF from both parents to have CF. If they inherit the factor change from but ane parent, they have the gene change for CF, just they doesn't have the condition. When this happens, your infant is called a CF carrier.

What issues does CF cause?

Babies who have CF have very thick and pasty fungus that builds up in the body. When this mucus builds up in the lungs, it blocks airways and causes breathing bug and infections. Airways are tubes that carry air in and out of the lungs. Every bit a baby with CF gets older, lung infections can get worse. This tin can lead to serious, and sometimes mortiferous, lung damage.

When mucus builds up in the digestive system, it blocks tubes in the pancreas, an organ in the belly. This can make it difficult for the body's digestives arrangement to intermission downwardly nutrient. When this happens, your infant may not get the nutrients they need to grow and stay good for you.

Some cases of CF are more serious than others. Babies who have CF are often sick with infections and demand a lot of special medical intendance.

How do yous know if your baby has CF?

All babies take newborn screening tests for CF.  With newborn screening tests, CF can be plant and treated early on.

Earlier your baby leaves the hospital, their health care provider takes a few drops of blood from their heel to test for CF and other conditions. The claret is collected and stale on a special newspaper and sent to a lab for testing.

If newborn screening results aren't normal, information technology simply means your baby needs more testing. Your babe'south provider can recommend another kind of test, chosen a diagnostic test. This test can bank check to meet if your baby has CF or if at that place is some other crusade for aberrant test results.

Your provider may recommend that your baby have a sweat test to see if they take CF. This is a simple, painless examination that checks the amount of salt in your infant's sweat. Babies with CF take more than common salt in their sweat than healthy babies. Your infant'south provider likewise may recommend a genetic test for your infant.

If your baby does have CF, they may have these signs and symptoms that can be mild or serious:

  • Coughing or wheezing
  • Having lots of mucus in the lungs
  • Many lung infections, such as pneumonia and bronchitis
  • Shortness of jiff
  • Salty skin
  • Slow growth, even with a big ambition
  • Meconium ileus, when meconium gets stuck in a newborn's intestine. Meconium is a babe's commencement bowel motion. It can be green, chocolate-brown or black in colour.
  • Bowel movements that are frequent, loose, large or look greasy
  • Tum pain or bloating

If your babe has CF, how are lung and breathing problems treated?

Many lung infections in babies who have CF are acquired past bacteria that don't usually cause problems for healthy babies. If your baby has CF, medicines similar antibiotics often cannot get rid of all the bacteria in their lungs. These infections tin can lead to lung damage.

Your child'southward treatment depends on the kind of symptoms they take and how severe the symptoms are. Sure medicines can help children with CF breathe better and preclude infections. Some come up every bit a mist that your child breathes into the lungs. Medicines used for CF include:

  • Fungus-thinners. Medicines like dornase alfa (Pulmozyme®) help thin mucus, making information technology easier to cough out.
  • Bronchodilators. These medicines help open up the airways to clear mucus from the lungs. Albuterol (Proventil® and Ventolin®) is an example.
  • Antibiotics. These are medicines that kill infections caused by bacteria. Tobramycin  ( Tobi®) is a common inhaled antibiotic, and azithromycin is a common antibiotic taken by rima oris.
  • Ibuprofen. This medicine can help reduce lung redness and swelling that make breathing hard.
  • Hypertonic saline. Inhaling this salt-water mist helps draw more h2o into the airways. This helps sparse the mucus.

Your kid's provider may recommend that they get lots of concrete activity or that you use other therapies to vibrate (milk shake) the chest to help loosen mucus in her lungs. This tin can get in easier for your child to coughing fungus upwardly and out of the lungs.

If your kid's CF becomes life-threatening, a lung transplant may exist an option. This is a major operation that is condign more successful in treating CF.

If your baby has CF, how are growth and digestion issues treated?

Some children with CF gain weight and grow normally. But many grow more slowly than other children.

Nearly children with CF need to have special medicines that help their bodies get nutrients from food. This helps with weight gain and digestion.

To assistance them grow, children with CF need good for you, high-calorie meals. They need actress vitamins, peculiarly vitamins A, D, E, and Grand. A dietitian with feel in treating children who have CF can aid y'all create your child'southward meal plan for a healthy weight gain. A dietician is a person who has special training in helping people eat healthy.

Some teens or immature adults with CF may get CF-related diabetes. This is usually treated by getting shots of insulin at mealtimes. It'south important to keep diabetes under command and so that information technology doesn't cause more lung issues.

More data

  • Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

Encounter as well: Genetic counseling

Final updated: May, 2021